All:
Pointer to article: http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/websitemgmt/story/0,10801,107743,00.html?source=NLT_PM&nid=107743
Kobielus kommentary:
This is a case of the harder they come, the harder they’re hit. This page is an act of pure Internet-age hubris and opportunism, and to be admired for that. It shows how mere notoriety can be monetized to the hilt. Clearly, it’s no scam, just an ingenious moneymaking scheme: Tew is, quite transparently and honestly, selling a lease to presentable pixels over time, and the “rent” on this commodity is quite clearly derived from notoriety-stoked demand.
But, honestly, this is a crock: Notoriety has an extremely limited shelf life, especially in the overcrowded cybersphere. This site and these pixels were suddenly hot last week and this, but will soon be forgotten and never visited again by a mortal soul. Consequently, the pixels will be practically worthless for over 99 percent of the life of their lease. And even during their “heyday” (now), they’re of questionable value.
Case in point: I still haven’t viewed this “Million Dollar Homepage,” though I tried browsing to it several times last week (in its heyday—-its sweet spot--its period of max commercial value to tenants). I waited and waited for the page to download, and grew tired and eventually backed out before the access attempt had a chance to time out on me. This million-second wait may have been due to the huge volume of concurrent access requests, or to the DDoS attempt reported in this article, or to both. I don’t care.
What I do know is that even during the magnet page’s heyday, its effective value as a promotion, advertising, and clickthrough medium to its tenants was effectively zero.
As I said up above, the “Million Dollar Homepage” wasn’t technically a scam. Just a clever stunt that benefited precisely one party.
Jim
